The problem of exterminating, or at least controlling, the population of pests, particularly rodents such as rats and mice, is an extremely old problem and has been dealt with in innumerable ways. Many of these ways are well known to the average householder and to the average owner and/or maintenance personnel of commercial etablishments. Some are extremely simple and others very sophisticated but they are all insofar as I am aware subject to various problems and difficulties.
For example, most trapping devices have the advantage of providing a definite action but the disadvantage of having to be emptied periodically and some disposition made of the dead body caught therein. Where rodent population is high, this obviously limits the number of animals that can be disposed of at a given time by a single trap device and thus requires either frequent emptying or acceptance of low performance.
Partly to meet this problem and partly to provide a higher level of convenience in the elimination of rodents and/or other similar pests, various kinds of poisons have been offered to the trade. These require ingestion by the rodent and hence various techniques have been employed for inducing such ingestion. In some cases the poison is provided with an attractive taste but this often attracts other than the desired animals for poisoning, namely such as dogs and/or cats which may be permitted to roam in the same general area.
Accordingly, the objects of the invention include:
1. To provide a device for containing an ingestable poison for rodents and/or other pests and for facilitating the ingestion thereof by such pests. PA1 2. To provide a device, as aforesaid, into which such poison can be placed, and which will resist scattering thereof by the rodent. PA1 3. To provide a device, as aforesaid, which will have a high level of versatility and can accordingly be placed in a wide variety of operating situations. PA1 4. To provide a device, as aforesaid, which can be conveniently positioned in known rodent runways. PA1 5. To provide a device, as aforesaid, which can be constructed in a simple manner from simple materials. PA1 6. To provide a device, as aforesaid, which can readily be made in a number of different sizes. PA1 7. To provide a device, as aforesaid, which can be made of simple and inexpensive materials but which will function effectively over a long period of time. PA1 8. To provide a device, as aforesaid, which will be of sufficiently inexpensive construction as to be capable of manufacturing in large numbers with only a low manufacturing and maintenance cost. PA1 9. To provide a device, as aforesaid, which can be made by a single punching action from a sheet of relatively stiff but bendable material, such as paperboard, sheet metal or sheet plastic, and which may then be assembled into an operating manner quickly and by relatively simple bending of component parts.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent to persons acquainted with devices of this general type upon reading the following specification and inspection of the accompanying drawings.